Working From Home Flat-Rate Expenses UK 2026: GBP 6/Week Explained

Working from home is now a permanent feature of millions of people's working lives. HMRC allows both employees and the self-employed to claim tax relief on the additional costs of working from home -- but the rules, rates, and methods of claiming differ significantly between the two groups. This guide explains both for 2026/27.

Employees: The GBP 6 Per Week Flat Rate

Employees who work from home regularly (not just occasionally) can claim a flat-rate deduction of GBP 6 per week, which works out to GBP 312 per year. This does not require you to keep any receipts or calculate actual costs -- it is a fixed allowance that HMRC accepts without supporting evidence.

The relief is worth:

• GBP 62.40 per year for a basic-rate taxpayer (20% of GBP 312)
• GBP 124.80 per year for a higher-rate taxpayer (40% of GBP 312)

It is not a massive sum, but it is free money that requires minimal effort to claim. If you have been working from home for several years and never claimed, you can backdate the claim for up to four prior tax years.

How Employees Claim

There are two main routes for employees:

Through PAYE (P87): If your total employment expenses are under GBP 2,500 per year (which is usually the case for WFH relief alone), you can claim using a P87 form, either online through your Government Gateway account or by post. HMRC adjusts your tax code to include the relief, effectively increasing your tax-free income.

Through Self Assessment: If you already file a Self Assessment return, you include employment expenses on the employment pages. This is the same process used for other employee expenses.

Note that the GBP 6 weekly flat rate cannot be claimed for days when you choose to work from home -- HMRC requires that working from home is a condition of your employment or genuinely necessary, not simply a personal preference. During the pandemic, HMRC applied the relief liberally, but from 2022/23 onwards, the regular-requirement criterion applies again.

Employees Cannot Claim Equipment Costs Separately

One common misconception is that employees can separately claim the cost of office equipment, broadband, or furniture. In most cases, they cannot -- unless the employer has specifically provided the equipment and it is used primarily for work. If your employer pays for equipment directly or reimburses you for it, the reimbursement is generally exempt from tax.

Where no reimbursement is made, employees have very limited ability to claim actual equipment costs personally. The flat-rate allowance is essentially the practical limit of what most employed WFH workers can recover.

Self-Employed: Two Methods

Self-employed individuals and sole traders have more flexibility because working-from-home costs can be claimed as a business expense on their Self Assessment return. There are two approaches:

Method 1: Simplified Flat Rates

HMRC publishes simplified flat rates for home-office use based on the number of hours worked from home each month:

• 25 to 50 hours per month: GBP 10
• 51 to 100 hours per month: GBP 18
• More than 100 hours per month: GBP 26

These are monthly figures. A self-employed person working more than 100 hours from home each month can claim GBP 312 per year (GBP 26 x 12) -- the same headline annual figure as the employee flat rate, but the rates scale down for lower hours.

These simplified rates cover heating, electricity, and broadband. They do not cover rent, mortgage interest, or council tax -- for those, the proportional actual-cost method is needed.

Method 2: Proportional Actual Costs

Alternatively, the self-employed can claim a proportion of actual household costs -- heating, electricity, broadband, water if relevant -- based on the percentage of the home used for business and the proportion of time spent working.

For example: if your home has five rooms and you use one as an office, and you work from home five days out of seven, you might claim 1/5 x 5/7 of your relevant household bills. The proportional approach almost always yields a larger deduction than the simplified rate, but it requires records and a defensible calculation.

Be cautious about claiming mortgage interest or rent under the proportional method. HMRC scrutinises these claims carefully, and claiming a proportion of rent or mortgage interest can create complications -- including a potential CGT charge on the business-use proportion of your home when you sell. For most people, sticking to running costs (energy, broadband) is the safer approach.

Can Employees Claim Under Both Regimes?

No. You claim either as an employee (GBP 6/week) or as self-employed. If you have both employment income and self-employment income in the same tax year, you can claim employee flat-rate relief through P87 for the employment element, and use the self-employed rules for your sole trader expenses. The two claims are entirely separate.

Partnership Situations

Partners in a business partnership claim home-office expenses in the same way as sole traders -- either the simplified flat rates or actual proportional costs -- as a partnership expense deducted against the partnership's profits before allocation.

A Note on Employer-Arranged Homeworking Payments

Separately from tax relief claims, employers can pay employees up to GBP 6 per week (GBP 312 per year) tax-free as a contribution towards homeworking costs, without needing to provide evidence of actual expenditure. If your employer pays this, you cannot also claim the GBP 6 flat-rate relief yourself -- but you are no worse off, as you have already received the equivalent benefit tax-free.

To see how working from home tax relief affects your overall income tax position, use the CalcHub Take-Home Pay Calculator to model different scenarios.